KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah on Wednesday directed the Population Welfare Department to auction sixty-four obsolete family planning vehicles inoperable from the last six years.
Minister for Population Welfare Mumtaz Jakhrani informed the Chief Minister that the vehicles were provided by the federal government six year ago to launch family planning drive across the province.
The vehicles were equipped with a small operation theater and other related facilities, but were suitable to move around in rural areas and the purpose could not be achieved.
The chief minister directed the chief secretary to dispose the family planning vehicles and other Sindh government vehicles abandoned at Balochistan House and the Sindh Secretariat in a transparent way.
Secretary Population Mr Laeeq Ahmed apprised that there was a development portfolio of Rs. 1,564.314 million to execute six schemes. However, the allocation for the current year is Rs745 million and only two schemes are on-going and four are new schemes.
Giving details of the schemes, the secretary said that the scheme for construction of building for population training institute at Karachi was launched at the cost of Rs119 million. The government had released Rs. 91.5 million to the Works and Services Department in July 2016 but no progress has been reported.
Laeeq also informed that a Coasted Implementation Plan (CIP) for family planning has been approved for ten districts including Thar, Thatta/Sujawal, Gadap, Kashmore, Hyderabad, Larkana, Sukkur, Naushehro Feroze and Dadu for Rs.890.314 million against which the government has released Rs169.250 million.
Jakhrani said that a scheme to construct Regional Director Officer at Hyderabad and Mirpurkhas was approved at Rs90 million but could be executed due to unavailability of land.
Laeeq said that a new scheme of Rs. 100 million is being worked out to develop a web-based monitoring system of family planning and reproductive health.
The chief minister expressed disappointment that the population department could not execute just six schemes, and directed to approve their news on a priority basis.
